Henry County/Abbeville

Greetings, I will be hunting in Henry County in the area of Hwy 93, near Abbeville. Was just curious about the timing of the rut, and if it will be in general like the rut map predicts in January. We hunted last year in the same area and didn’t see much of a rut at all. Any local knowledge of the area would be appreciated.

I would say it starts up good right around Christmas till the middle of January .

Thanks, of course it’s during the busy family time. Lol

I hunt the Henry/Barbour line within 30 miles or so of you. There are several different rut phases in this area but I've hunted this area for over 15 years and the rut for us is always the best from about Jan 22-28. We still have plenty of rut activity after those dates but that seems to be our prime. Of course the cooler the temp is the more daylight activity you'll see. We run around 15 cameras and our cameras also show the mature bucks begin showing up around Jan 18th in daylight but peak somewhere around the 24th/25th depending on temp. Below I listed the last two seasons of harvest we've had.

1/21/2020 - four year old eight point (killed at 7:30AM checking scrapes)
1/25/2020 - five year old ten point (killed at 4:30PM cruising a swamp creek)

12/19/2020 (temp was below freezing, not rut) - five to six year old 9 point (Killed at 8AM)
12/25/2020 - Five/six year old 9 point (Shot at 8AM - not rut) - CNC helped me recover him, found him at lunch
1/18/2021 - Five year old 8 point (killed at 8:30AM - searching for does on scrape line) I have a video on my youtube channel of this one
2/6/2021 - Four/five year old main frame 8 point with stickers (killed at 7:30AM) I have a video on my youtube of this one too

if your a good bit north of hwy 10 then go by what QDMAlan said. but if your south of 10 and east of abbeville then roondog hit the nail on the head......starts ramping up dec 15th and xmas to mlk weekend its game on.....could be a week or so either way depends on the date of the full moon....

I’m 16 miles west of Abbeville and January 25th-28th is the peak. It is best just to be in a tree stand all of January.

Thank you guys. I think I will hit it hard around Christmas and hunt hard until the end of the season.

Good luck!